Things did get better under Obama, in many ways. To pretend otherwise by focusing on areas that didn't get better is again unreasonable. Things are getting dramatically, markedly worse under a president who is essentially pushing standard-issue GOP agenda items. This article alone is evidence of that. Little effort need be expended for more examples.
And, for what it's worth, I'm not a straight-ticket voter.
*Edited for tone.
Looks like that was a bi-partisan effort, but with more Democrats opposing it than Republicans. Senators who voted for the act: 51 Republicans, 30 Democrats. Senators opposed: 2 Republicans, 16 Democrats (one Republican senator didn't vote).[1]
House members who voted for the act: 236 Republicans, 178 Democrats. House members opposed: 0 Republicans, 15 Democrats (four Democratic house members didn't vote).[2]
[1] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/104-1995/s268 [2] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/104-1996/h25
The 2007-8 crash was somewhat before Obama's time.
> giving guns to Mexican cartels
Started under Bush.
> spying on and threatening journalists
Started decades before Obama.
> unprecendented exponetial growth in classified documents
That needs a citation.
> using the IRS as a political wing
Unless I'm reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy wrong, this was a natural (and requested) response to Citizens United and Republicans abusing 501(c)(4) entities.
> hunting down and smearing [...] Julian Assange
It is extremely difficult to smear a neo-nazi misogynist more than he already does by his own words.
I think Assange is a self-serving hypocrite, but calling him that seems pretty extreme.
Not the jailtime, and not the Obama negotiations with Wall Street. Do you ever watch Frontline... or Google?
>Started under Bush.
Misnomer. It started under bush, and a second, LARGER program started under Obama. Google it.
>Started decades before Obama.
Wrong. Look up the unprecedented demands of Obama for news companies to reveal their anon sources.
>That needs a citation.
God damn, have you ever heard of Google? Or are you just afraid of finding out something?
https://nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/classified.png
> neo-nazi misogynist
As usual, use a character attack when you don't have the logic to win.
You can really tell when someone's ego is on the line when they refuse to even check your facts before attempting to refute them with "I haven't seen it, so it must be wrong."
While I understand this sentiment, you have to understand that it is also necessary to try and inspire people even if you know that you probably won't get everything you want to get done. You can hope that people will act intelligently in their own self-interest and know that you are the best candidate for them, but in reality I don't think that is enough, you have to inspire people and work their emotions. It is manipulative but also, unfortunately, necessary. Given what Obama had on his plate and a totally oppositional congress for the most part, we can't really complain. He tried to be bipartisan and it was a waste of effort for the most part, yeah he could have been better in theory but in reality I'm not so sure.
So surely you're just as angry about the Democrats deregulating the telecoms in 1996 and allowing companies to own entire vertical chains. (Comcast owns everything from the News, to the pipe you get it from. Ever notice how they never mention "big corporations are killing America" anymore?)
The GOP hates you. The Democrats _pretend_ not to. If that weren't the case, you'd think 8 years under Obama and near-universal public support behind him... things would have actually you know... gotten better.
Too bad they were too busy letting Wall Street destroy the economy without jailtime, giving guns to Mexican cartels, spying on and threatening journalists, drone strikes on US citizens, unprecedented exponential growth in classified documents (cover my ass, anyone?), using the IRS as a political wing, and hunting down and smearing both Snowden and Julian Assange. (Props for the ACA, though. Except that also had no provision to stop healthcare insurance companies rapidly increasing, insane prices that make even ACA plans unaffordable to poor people--I would know. Minimum of $350 a month isn't a viable healthcare plan, as it continues to rise ~10% a year. But fixing pre-existing conditions was About Damn Time(TM), so again, props to them.)
p.s. I voted for Obama, so yeah, I do get to bitch about the disparity between what he said, and what he did.